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Cyrus Belt is Dead

Heaven was missing an angel. We'll never forget you, Baby Cyrus.--Message on cloth banner hung on the site where Cyrus Belt, 23 months, was thrown off 25 feet below H-1 Freeway, Honolulu, Hawai'i, Jan. 17, 2008. Two cars hit him and on the spot he breathed his last.

It is your story that caught us off guard, not your tormentor'sreport of demons and other evils. Your death flashed on our

computer alerts, telling us nothing but a traffic jam. From the pictures we have come to know: wrapped in white

clothing to hide your fear and the fracture of your infant life.How can it be, our angel, how can it ever be that those

who cause us misery are alive while you who give uslaughter and joy are no longer with us to remind us

that life's opposite is a stone to mark your grave?We stopped for a while, knowing that we cannot go home,

not yet, until you are taken away to a chamber so coldyou really wished you were dead. Frozen beyond recognition

because your mother did not know how to make of your dreams of flowers and moons? Or the sun on Waikiki

that perhaps you have not seen in its most beautifulmoment of radiating glow, telling us of hopes beyond

what mothers cannot do, what fathers will never knowwhat to do? For there, left alone to saunter in alleys

on streets on wandering you could not have donewere the doors were locked or the gates closed

or a guardian kept watch over you as you learnto walk a mile and then two and then on your own

to life's turmoils. Snapping, a man caught your arm,perhaps you laughed at him as you looked at his eyes,

a demon in a clown's clothing residing in thereand tickling you so, and tickling you some more.

You responded to his touch, worn man againstyour baby skin and his smell you know sometimes

as he sat for you when you were left alone on your own.And then he brought you to a theatre outside,

the arena of your quick goodbye. First, did he holdyou by your strong legs upside down, on the railings

with the speeding cars below, on 60-65 speedof angry man hungered by the time of day

or by the light of the dancing sun in these islands?Second, did he wave your body a bit a he held

you and then you shrieked with laughterthe laughter becoming terror you do not know?